Villa Medici chronicles

During her residency as a resident at the French Academy of Rome – Villa Medici in 2019-2020, Sara Vitacca is researching the lesser-known, even “hidden”, stories of the Villa Médicis, devoting a series of podcasts to them. These podcasts have given rise to the book Les Chroniques de la Villa Médicis: histoires d’art et de vie à Rome au XIXe siècle, published by Editions Palombi with the support of the Académie de France in Rome.

Visitors to the Villa Medici, a place steeped in history and mystery in the Pincio hills, will no doubt wonder who once lived there, strolled in the gardens, or dreamed of a brilliant career in one of its great studios. This book is aimed at this curious public, giving voice to the forgotten or little-known stories of this Villa, through the lives, habits and creations of the artists who came to live in Rome, at the Académie de France, in the 19th century. Between intimate dramas and political revolutions, social evenings and epidemics, the daily lives of these artists are not so far removed from our own, and the story of the Villa Medici is even more fascinating than the myth that surrounds it.